OpenVMS: keeping the systems that run the plant alive
OpenVMS is not dead. VMS Software Inc. has ported it to x86-64 and keeps releasing it, and hundreds of installations across Europe still drive production lines, warehouse systems, banking back-offices and supervisory applications. Few modern environments match their reliability.
The problem is not technical, it is human: the engineers who built these systems are retiring, and the teams inheriting them have never seen DCL, ACMS or RDB. That is where I come in.
What I do
Application maintenance and support
Taking over existing applications built on ACMS, RDB, DECforms, COBOL, Fortran, C, BASIC or Pascal. Diagnosis, fixes, small enhancements, and documentation of what was never documented.
Knowledge transfer and training
I train support teams and engineers on OpenVMS: system, DCL, operations, then ACMS, RDB and DECforms. Courses are built on the versions you actually run (Integrity 8.4 as well as x86-64 9.x), with hands-on exercises in your own environment.
Migration to OpenVMS x86-64
Feasibility assessment, migration plan from Alpha or Itanium to x86-64 (physical or virtualised), installation of the VSI toolchain (compilers, DECforms, ACMS), porting and acceptance testing. The lowest-risk way to extend a working application estate by fifteen years.
Audit and mapping
Before any decision to keep, migrate or replace: inventory of applications, dependencies, available skills and risks.
Beyond OpenVMS: COBOL, Bull GCOS, Natural/ADABAS, IBM mainframe
The same approach applies to other legacy estates where skills are scarce: COBOL applications, TDS transaction processing and IDS II databases on Bull GCOS, Natural on ADABAS, IBM mainframes. Takeover, documentation, maintenance and training of the teams that inherit them.
Where this expertise comes from
I spent most of my career in the steel industry, at Sollac and then ArcelorMittal, at the Fos-sur-Mer works in the south of France. I ran process computing for the Ironmaking department: a team of fifteen, level-3 supervision of the blast furnaces, sinter plant and coke ovens, on OpenVMS. These are systems where an outage costs millions, and where one learns to respect what works.
Since then I have worked independently on OpenVMS environments in manufacturing and the nuclear sector, and I am a VSI Ambassador, a member of VMS Software Inc.'s community programme, which gives me direct access to its engineering teams and releases.
Who this is for
IT departments of manufacturers still running OpenVMS in production. Service and support companies that took over an OpenVMS contract without in-house skills. System integrators looking for a subcontractor for an x86-64 migration. I work as a subcontractor or directly, remotely or on site, across Europe, in English and French.